wik009

In a recent question below, someone mentioned 300 miles per tank and a responder said that it relates to 20 MPG. This is automatically assuming that the tank (or a fill-up from warning light lit EMPTY) is 15 gallons. I looked up the tank spec and it is 70 Liters or 18.5 Gallons. There is a BIG difference between 18.5 and assumed 15.0 and this is why I never talk about miles per tank.

I am sure Lexus has a spec on when exactly the empty-warning-light-lit should occur as far as how much gas is left in the tank and also when the needle is EXACTLY at “EMPTY” and how much gas is left in the tank but does anyone know what this (assummably internal Lexus) specification is?

To put this into better perspective, I have filled my 2001 ES300 tank 239 times to date and the top 10 filled gallon amount was 15.822, 15.833, 15.870, 15.946, 15.980, 16.091, 16.142, 16.205, 16.355, and 16.873 gallons. That’s average of 16.112 Gallons with standard deviation of 0.319 Gal. Needless to say, even at 16.873 gallons empty from 18.5, the engine was still running and I never ran the tank to total empty, ever.

I had a friend who bought a brand new Buick in 1992 and several months later when he assumed that he had plenty of gas in the tank because his gas gauge needle was at 1/32 thank mark but he ended up stranded on the road because the engine died due to having no gas! It was one of those quality escapes by Buick but I am certain Lexus will never get caught with even one of those cases, ever.

So my question is, does anyone know the exact number of gallons from 18.5 in which the engine cuts out and what is the number of gallons that’s left in the tank that coincide with empty-warning-light starting to come on? My lowest gas in the tank without engine cutting out was (18.5 - 16.873 =) 1.627 Gallons and the empty-warning-light was on for about 30 miles when it happened.

BDSL

Next time you fill up your tank, look at the pump display. It will tell you EXACTLY how much you pumped into your gas tank.

Then do (distance traveled) / (gallon of gas filled). DONE!

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

Yeah the whole idea behind MPG is to calculate how many miles you covered and divide them by the amount of gallons used. In order to get a correct reading for gallons used, I start with a full tank of gas and then on my next fill-up I look at the gallons required to fill it back up. The only error comes from the gas station attendants who "top off" your tank to round off the bill. But if you happen to live anywhere else besides NJ, you don't have to worry about it - just wait for the click.

es5240

I dont think he is try to caculate mpg. I think he trying to find out whats the lowest amount of gas he can have in his car before it is no longer able to drive.

wik009

THANK YOU!!!
Let me repharase the question:
(1) "What is the lowest amount of gas you had in your tank without the engine going off?"
(and the lowest amount of gas is calculated by subtracting the number of gallons that was put in afterwards from 18.5. Mine was 1.627)
(2) "If you did run out of gas, at what amount of gas did your engine go off?"

Jeremy-KY

Lowest amount of gas for me, was a little over 2 gallons or so. The most I can remember ever filling up was around 16 and a half gallons of gas. and when the warning light turns on for me its about 6 gallons of gas left in the tank.


I'll be honest with you though I think this could be hard to achieve, but could turn out to be an interesting experiment at the same time, my guess, when you know your fuel is low, have a 5 gallon gas container filled with fuel, and then run your car dry and then see what happens.

Once your car runs dry, put the 5 gallons in, drive to a station and top up, take note of the amount of fuel that was put in (on top of said 5 gallons), then add the 5 gallons you had. and then minus the total fuel from the known tank capacity. (I'm just thinking out of the blue here anyway) - I'm also guessing this could possibly be a way to find out just how much fuel was used in that short trip from that 5 gallons of gas after being completely empty. (I think this could be the same thing as the quote below)


Another thing that comes into mind, although I'm not exactly sure if this is right or wrong, take your vehicles cc rating, which would probably be 2994CC for the 3.0L 1MZ V6.

With the CC's converted into gallons, 2994cc would roughly equal 0.790931125 US Gallons, the fun part would be figuring out just how long the car would run with basically 1 gallon of gas in it. Or quite possibly could this be the last amount of fuel that the engine burns up before sputtering out?



Whether the above theories is correct or wrong I decided to try to use my head a little today, instead of being lazy, I'm not the brightest tool in the shed however, so please forgive me in advance , if anything I'm bound to learn something new from this anyway.

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

What do you mean by this? The displacement of the engine corresponds to the volume of all the cylinders combined. I'm a little confused at how you're replacing the size of the engine with a gallon of fuel.

Oh and about running the engine dry. I would not do it on an older car with high miles because you may end up clogging the fuel filter/pump. The reason being is that due to numerous fill-ups, there could be a bunch of yucky stuff on the bottom of your fuel tank, which will get sucked up at that last moment.

Bumbobee

Assuming the tank is 70 liters I probably filled up 66-67 liters, so I had around 3-4 liters left in the tank, which is around 1 US gallon (3.78 liters).

I also have a 2001 ES300 and when the empty light comes on I don't worry at all because I still have at least 100 km or more to go depending on where I am driving.

I am actually really surprised I haven't run out of gas yet, I've certainly pushed my luck with the car.

Also I get extreme MPG numbers depending on how and where I drive. There's been a few times where I did 800 km on a tank of gas driving 80 km/h on country roads. That's about 28.93 MPG US using a rough estimate of 65 liters of premium gas, which is awesome, I love the ES300 on the highway, it's a beast!

Right now during winter, my commute from the burbs to the city, I am getting around 500-550 on 60 liters and that's around 21-22 MPG mixed driving. For the winter I'm running 87 octane gas because I noticed it makes almost no difference in cold weather and city driving vs premium.

Jeremy-KY

To be truthfully honest with you, I don't even know that myself, I was just more or less thinking out loud, wondering how much fuel could have been burned at the moment before "truthfully cutting out" I've said it before though "I'm not exactly sure if this is right or wrong" lol leave it to me for my curiosity to get the better of me.


The one thing I'm certain on though is that i'm pretty sure its definitely around 6 gallons of fuel left in the tank when the fuel warning light comes on, I've filled up too many times just as that light came on, and it was always a little over 12 gallons of fuel and 2 clicks on the pump to shoot my fuel gauge well over the full mark.

GoodRevs

My Cadillac runs dry when it says 4 gallons left. That's because there are two sensors, one that measures gallons used and one that measures gallons left. The later is known to fail after a certain number of years and because of it's very difficult to access position few replace it. Fortunately the other sensor rarely fails and is usually spot on, I just need to navigate through the dash computer display.

Moral of the story? Don't let the needle fall too low on any car.

pauloil

why worry about it? you said:"To put this into better perspective, I have filled my 2001 ES300 tank 239 times to date and the top 10 filled gallon amount was 15.822, 15.833, 15.870, 15.946, 15.980, 16.091, 16.142, 16.205, 16.355, and 16.873 gallons. That’s average of 16.112 Gallons with standard deviation of 0.319 Gal. Needless to say, even at 16.873 gallons empty from 18.5, the engine was still running and I never ran the tank to total empty, ever."
there's your answer and I don't think I'm going to drive around with the light on just to see what the max amount I can pump in is. Christ on a bicycle! Move on. that's what most people do when they fill there tank up.

lostboiwon

I been researching the real tank capacity the past week because the other day I drove the car way way way past the warning light (about 50 miles more) and went to fill the tank up and this is what the pump says... so... yea I'm pretty sure the tank is a bit larger than the 18.5 gallon that they say...

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

You should get a canister with a gallon of gas. Otherwise this can be very dangerous.

Bumbobee

I had the light on a few months ago and was stuck in extreme traffic, I didn't think I was going to make it to a station but magically I did. I think I put in 69.something liters or so in, was probably running on fumes.

JonnysES

Last time I filled up I was able to put in 15.6 gallons with the light just coming on and staying on. It tends to come on with the nose up hill or the car leaning left even if I have a 1/4 tank or any less. Granted I go about 475 miles on that 15-17 gallons from filler neck full until light is stuck on on level ground out on the interstate.